Forever Alone
by RachelCarter
Summary: She walked away, leaving the bodies. Her black combat boots hit the sidewalk, while she remained unaware that she was being watched by the one person deadlier than her, the one person who would be the biggest threat she's ever faced. Fang Wolfe was out for revenge, and Max had no idea the danger she was in. Her life was in his hands. Alternate reality, Max only has wings.
1. Hope

**A/N: This story is really sad, I just want you to know that if you don't like sad stories, then don't read this one. At times it will be lighthearted, but in the end it will be sad. Just figured I'd warn you. Review and tell me how I did with the sadness factor. Max is the only one with wings, but she doesn't like to use them. They are natural, there is no Itexicon or whitcoats.**

The girl walked down the the road, the moonlight just barely reavealing her form among the skeleton-like trees. Most people would consider it creepy, but Max was not most people. In fact, she was one-of-a-kind.

The seventeen-year-old continued to walk, enjoying the night air and embracing the fact that she was going to have to walk all night to reach her destination. She deserved it. She continued to walk as the moon got higher and higher before beginning to descend. It was in the quiet hours of the early morning, when nothing was stirring, there were no sounds except the occasional breath of wind, just barely moving the branches of the trees that had no leaves, no life, when she heard the noise. Just the barest hint of sound, a sign that someone else was with her, was nearby.

She acknowledged it by raising her hand above her head, just for a second, but enough so that the boy hiding behind the one tree different from the others knew to step out, to make himself seen. He raised his hand in greeting and she nodded, giving the eighteen-year-old permission to fall into step beside her. No words were spoken; none were needed. The silence was comfortable, familiar. She knew he meant to be here, knew he wanted to be. Fang never made noise unless he wanted to. The only reason she heard him was because she was allowed to, and she was grateful.

It meant she was forgiven.

The sun rose as they reached the village and they separated by habit, Fang going behind a tree to wait an hour before joining her at their meeting spot. They were too well known to be seen together, even though a couple is less likely to be noticed. It remained silent between them even after they sat in the cafe to drink their coffee. Once again, no words were spoken; none were needed. It was enough that they were there together.

The target entered the alleyway and she gathered the information needed from him before breaking his neck in a quick and painless death.

She rejoined Fang at the table and finished her coffee. She walked back to the road and turned in the direction she came from. She would have to go back to her client and give him the information he was paying her to get. Fang turned and walked with her until they reached the tree he had been behind the night before. He enveloped her in a hug, resting his head on her chin for several minutes.

She relished the rare gesture of affection; in their business, letting people know you were close to someone meant they were used against you. They separated with reluctance, the look in both their eyes telling the other that this was not the end, that they would see each other again someday. Neither one believed it, but they clung to the hope nonetheless. They turned their seperate ways and walked out of each other's lives, never looking back, and hoping that this goodbye wasn't forever.


	2. Maximum Ride

We were normal, well, as normal as a teenage girl named Maxine Batchelder can be. That's me, in case you didn't get it. Maxine is me. My dad's name is Jeb, my mom is Valencia, but my parents never actually got married even though they live together, so her last name is Martinez. I have a younger sister named Ella, and a little bro named Ari. I was kind of a loner at school, rich but not popular.

Isn't that weird? I had no friends to speak of, and nobody liked me. Dunno why, but it could be the fact that I didn't like them first. In fact, I stayed away from people as a rule.

I was rich, as I stated before, because my dad is a famous scientist. I didn't wear high heels or skirts, though. It makes me shudder just thinking about it. Oh, I also had a twin named Maya. She's everything I'm not, high heels, mini skirts, low cut blouses, the whole shibang. Blech.

Anyway, like I was saying. We were all normal-ish, until that fateful day when a shadow overtook the land, stealing all light and everything good from it, leeching all of the life out. I'm not kidding. We were attacked by some unknown person who had managed to do something -not sure what it was- that allowed him to attack the U.S. without retaliation. At first. Then, our army managed to fight him, but not without starting a nuclear war. That was interesting. In the space of a few months, all of the major cities all over the world: London, New York, D.C., Moscow, St. Petersburg, Paris, and all of those other cities whose names I can't recall, had been nuked. The fallout was incredible. It changed people. Gave them powers, and mutations.

I got several: Wings, (I know, right?) Hyper-speed while flying, I could breathe underwater, and I had this Voice in my head. The Voice was like another me. Not Maxine, and not the name I had after the War, Maximum Ride, but, no, this voice was like the rational, unimpulsive side of me, the one that told me what to do if I wanted to survive with my sanity still intact.

The War was unexpected and sudden. I'm in my class in school, listening to my Chemistry teacher (yes, I was a junior) drone on and on about who knows what, when all of a sudden there was an... earthquake, almost, but somehow I knew it was no earthquake, that this day would be one that we would remember forever.

We did. We simply call it the War, there is no other name for it. It was six days long, but the consequences tore our world apart. Governments fell, new ones rose up, 'till there were only five. Europe and Asia, Eurasia it was called, Africa, Australia, the Americas, and Greenland. The different island were taken over by different nations, and names were given to the different countries. Eurasia, Africa, and Australia remained the same, but the Americas were named after their dictator's tag, the Shadow, so that our country's name was Shadowacan. Greenland became Sleatland, named after it's ruler, Harridan Sleat.

My story starts three months after the War, when everyone had finally settled down into their respective areas. I had been walking to the store from my home, everything had remained much the same except for our justice system, that was nonexistent, when I heard the screech of the missile over my head.

I watched as it buried itself in my house on the hill, before it exploded, sending me down to my knees on the pavement. I watched in disbelief as random pieces of junk fell from the sky.

_My home._

I may not have liked my dad, but, _Mom. Ari. Ella. _

I still didn't cry. In fact, I wouldn't ever cry. Never again. In that moment, the moment my family, my life, was ripped from me by the leader of this land I lived in, I shut down. All feelings, all emotions, gone. I didn't care whether I lived or died, but I would survive because that's what they would want me to do. That's when the Voice kicked in.

_Get up, Max, you've got alot to do if you're going to survive in this world. Go to the house, find what you can, and make sure the clothes you get hide the wings on your back, but cut slits in the shirts so you can pull them out if you need to. _I knew then that my life would change, that it would never be the same.

It continued to sink in as I reached the house, seeing the mutilated bodies of my family made it really hit home. I knew, though, that it was dangerous for me to stay here. Perhaps my dad had been the only target, perhaps not, but I couldn't stay here. Shadow would find out soon enough that he was missing one daughter, and if I was one of the targets, then I needed to be as far away from there as possible.

I had to survive.

I had my backpack from school still on my back, so I dumped my books out and went through the rubble to find things that could be useful. I went to my room first, thankful that we had only had one floor so it made it easier to find stuff. I found my room and realized that I had shoved a load of clothes under the bed this morning so Mom wouldn't see them and make me fold them and put them away later. I pulled out five black T-shirts and three pairs of black jeans, then a black hoodie and two pairs of socks. I grabbed a coupla sets of sturdy underclothes, then grabbed my black combat boots, both pairs. My mom had bought them for me when we went hunting earlier this spring, and I silently thanked her now as I stuffed one pair in the backpack and put the other ones on. The clothes I had would last me about a week, and then I would break in somewhere and use a washer and dryer. I glanced around to see if there was anything else before I remembered the dagger and hunting knife I had gotten for Christmas. I slipped the knife in my boot and strapped the dagger around my thigh using the sheath it had come with.

I was ready to go and start my new life, my life on the run. _Not quite, Maxine. You need a new name. _I thought for a moment before a name came to mind. It was the name I had used as a child when playing house with Ella and we needed a cool name.

Maximum Ride.


	3. My Fault

**It has come to my attention that it is against the rules to post song lyrics on this site. Understanding this, I have removed my songfics and will not be posting those anymore with the lyrics inside. I have also changed the first chapter of Maximum Ride of a Homeschooler so that is does not include the lyrics of Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri; it merely makes mention of the title. Feel free to look up the song; it's one of my favorites and I highly recommend it. It certainly fits my story. Enough of my ramblings, I'm posting this on both of my stories, so whichever one you're reading, enjoy!**

**Oh, and please, please, please don't hate me when you guess who she is. You'll understand what I mean when you get to it.**

**-Four Months Later-**

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OO!" The yell was raw, hurt being the predominant emotion, but you could hear anger in there, too. Pure anger, and pure hurt. A heartbreaking cry, one that would make seasoned killers feel guilty.

I was a master of masking my emotions, though, so when the boy -around 18, so perhaps man would fit better?- cried out with such raw emotion, I barely even flinched, and it was indiscernible. I made sure of that.

I suppose I should tell you why this man was so upset. Well, you see, I had killed his little sister. It was an accident, granted, it was my fault, but I didn't mean to kill her. Perhaps I should start slightly earlier than that.

I had gone about a week before getting on the government's bad side. I had been correct in my assumption that my father had been the target; but now I was a target, all on my own. I may have stolen some information to sell on the black market; nothing too important, but good enough to get an okay price. Unfortunately, they got a picture of my face. As I was watching the news later (in a laundromat, waiting for my clothes to dry) I saw this picture of my face, but also one more thing. I hadn't noticed, but a piece of my yellow shirt had torn off in the doorway to the office who's computer I had hacked to get the files. It looked rather like a thief marking the scene as hers, and that was how it began.

They called me Scraps, because I left scraps of fabric to mark the scene. I was smart, though, never leaving a trail. That first photo was so grainy that facial recognition software could not identify it as my face. I always wore gloves, learned how to identify disguised cameras and find hidden ones, only ever leaving random yellow scraps of fabric as a trail.

I specialized in information retrieval. I would go in, steal it, and come right back out. I loved the thrill of it, the challenge of maneuvering around people, around their tricks and their traps. It was invigorating, and it was an amazing feeling.

Then people started paying me to. My standard rate was 100 grand. They would give me 50 in advance; the other 50 when the job was completed. I stole information most of the time, but occasionally I would steal expensive things, like paintings or rocks (diamonds, rubies, etc)

One day, There was a knock at the door of the apartment I had rented for a week. My brow furrowed as I got up from the couch to open the door. On the other side was a client who would pay me double my rate to something a little out of my comfort zone: a child.

His daughter had been taken by the government to be used as blackmail, and he wanted her back. The problem was, he didn't have much cash, and he thought I was the best option. He told me I was the best and I was cheap; anyone else with the ability to get his daughter would ask for too much, and he was right. 200 grand was not alot now; but others would have charged him anywhere from 500-600 thousand bucks. At the least.

My life changed that day. One word changed the rest of my life. If I said no, I would stay a thief, a pretty good life, fairly steady, and I could potentially get lots of money. If I said no, it could open me up to a whole new line of work, one that would pay more, and that I might be able to retire from without people coming after me looking for old expensive stuff they thought I had but didn't.

I thought about it, and while I would like to tell you that I "listened to my heart", or "did what felt right", I can't, 'cause I didn't. I went with what would be the challenge, what would be more dangerous, more thrilling.

I went with yes.

- **_Don't diss the line. I love lines. They make me feel happy.-_**

I loved my new job. It had only been 3 months since my parents died, and I was already good at this. Midway through the third month, I got a call from someone saying he would pay me $500,000 to retrieve her daughter from a mob cell. I accepted, of course, 500 grand would pay my bills for 3 months at least.

The plan was to sneak into the building in the middle of the night, sneak the six-year-old out, and meet her older brother in the woods, where he would give me my money. It was simple, but there were four dozen ways it could go wrong. The plan also called for me to backpack and hitchhike my way to New York, which, surprisingly, was comprised of more than the city. It took me over a week, but I made it.

It went well at first, I got in, grabbed the girl, and we were hightailing it out of there when I hit a tripwire. I had turned back to see the girl following, tripped over the wire, hit the ground rolling, and ran for my life. The girl had grabbed my hand, so I was kind of in front of her, almost dragging her on the ground. In retrospect, I should have picked her up, we would have run faster and made a smaller target, but it was too late for that. Just before we got to the woods, I heard gunfire, and bullets whizzed by us to bury themselves in the tree trunks. I heard a gasp from beside me, then the hand held in mine went limp. I turned, quick as a flash, picked her up and ran like crazy for the safety of the trees.

Oh, by the way, have I mentioned I'm abnormally strong? No? Well, I've mentioned it now. My bones are also hollow, now, otherwise, when I flew, I'd drop like a rock. Anyways, back to the story.

I dodged bullets as I ran, slowly outrunning my opponents. I ran in what would seem like random directions, but I have like this built in GPS, so I knew exactly where I was. I turned left towards the clearing where I was to meet her brother, hoping all the while that he wouldn't be a fighter, and that he wouldn't try to kill me when he found out it was my fault. My hope was futile. He was not only a fighter, but he was an amazing one, way better than me, and fighting for his sister. And, he loved her. Very much, as shown by the raw cry that came out of his mouth when I showed up with his sister in my arms, her hair tangled with twigs and leaves, blue eyes open, unseeing, pink dress in tatters, dirt smeared all over, and, worst of all, the blood dripping down my arms from the bullet wounds in her back.

She was dead, and it was my fault.


End file.
